The Beatles and Their Fans

This chapter focuses on the Beatles’ transition from an English sensation to an international phenomenon during the fall and winter of 1963–1964, with particular attention to British and American media’s construction of the Beatles’ image and their evolving fan base during that period. On its surface, due to Capitol Records’ and the American media’s initial dependence on British sources, the Beatles’ image appeared to have been exported to the United States with little change. Yet in American media, the band’s image was stripped of much of the class-based resonance so important in the British context, and because of the Beatles’ teen-idol status, Capitol and the American press extricated their image from the intimations of sex, drugs, and violence found in Liverpool’s “rave” culture.. What was left was an ebullient ideal, a celebration of youth that carried the Beatles through the touring years and beyond.

SUFI NIGHT: MUSIC, RITUAL AND ECSTASY ON THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE

ResumoÀs vinte horas dos dias 14 e 15 de maio de 2004, a Sala de Concertos da Cité de la Musique, em Paris, abriu suas portas para quatro ordens sufis do mundo muçulmano – Murid (do Senegal), Yesevi (do Egito), Kadiri (do Afeganistão) e Chisti-Qawwali (do Paquistão) – uma após a outra, apresentarem seus concertos espirituais. A audição (al-sama) da Nuit Soufie (nome dado ao concerto) terminou, nas duas noites, de madrugada. Através das recitações e cantos poéticos dos Murids do Senegal, das recitações corânicas apresentadas em elaboradas técnicas vocais, pelo Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tûni (do Egito), do círculo de zikr (repetição dos nomes de Deus), liderada por Mir Fakr al-Din Agha (do Afeganistão) e do canto alegre e contagiante dos Qawwâli (do Paquistão), sob a batuta de Asif Ali Khan, os rituais sufis rivalizaram com os “transes” techno da cultura rave atual. Neste texto – que é fruto de uma etnografia de passagem – a autora faz uma reflexão comparativa entre os “transes vertiginosos” produzidos nas pistas rave de dança e os “transes esotéricos” experimentados pelos participantes (“musicantes” e “musicados”) dos e nos concertos ou audições (al-sama) públicos, sufis.AbstractAt eight o’clock on the 14th and 15th of May 2004, the Salle des Concerts of the Cité de la Musique, in Paris, opened its doors to four Sufi orders of the Muslim world – Murid (from Senegal), Yesevi (from Uper Egypt), Kadiri (from Afghanistan) and Chisti-Qawwali (from Pakistan) –, one after another, present their spiritual concerts. The audition (al-sama) of the Sufi Night (the name given to the concert), on the both of the two nights, ended in the small hours. With the recitations and poetic songs of the Murids from Senegal, the Koranic recitations presented in elaborate vocal techniques by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tûni (from Egypt), the zikr circle (repetition of the names of God), led by Mir Fakr al-Din Agha (from Afghanistan) and the joyful and contagious Qawwali songs (from Pakistan), led by Asif Ali Khan, the Sufi rituals rivaled the profane techno “trances” of modern rave culture. In this text – which is fruit of an ethnography of passage – the author makes a comparative reflexion between the “vertiginous trances” produced on the rave dance floors and the esoteric “trances” or “ecstasies” experienced by the participants (“musicians” and “listeners”) of and in the public Sufi concerts or auditions (al-sama).

Sufi Night: Music, Ritual and Ecstasy on the Conteporary Scene

ResumoÀs vinte horas dos dias 14 e 15 de maio de 2004, a Sala de Concertos da Cité de la Musique, em Paris, abriu suas portas para quatro ordens sufis do mundo muçulmano – Murid (do Senegal), Yesevi (do Egito), Kadiri (do Afeganistão) e Chisti-Qawwali (do Paquistão) – uma após a outra, apresentarem seus concertos espirituais. A audição (al-sama) da Nuit Soufie (nome dado ao concerto) terminou, nas duas noites, de madrugada. Através das recitações e cantos poéticos dos Murids do Senegal, das recitações corânicas apresentadas em elaboradas técnicas vocais, pelo Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tûni (do Egito), do círculo de zikr (repetição dos nomes de Deus), liderada por Mir Fakr al-Din Agha (do Afeganistão) e do canto alegre e contagiante dos Qawwâli (do Paquistão), sob a batuta de Asif Ali Khan, os rituais sufis rivalizaram com os “transes” techno da cultura rave atual. Neste texto – que é fruto de uma etnografia de passagem – a autora faz uma reflexão comparativa entre os “transes vertiginosos” produzidos nas pistas rave de dança e os “transes esotéricos” experimentados pelos participantes (“musicantes” e “musicados”) dos e nos concertos ou audições (al-sama) públicos, sufis.AbstractAt eight o’clock on the 14th and 15th of May 2004, the Salle des Concerts of the Cité de la Musique, in Paris, opened its doors to four Sufi orders of the Muslim world – Murid (from Senegal), Yesevi (from Uper Egypt), Kadiri (from Afghanistan) and Chisti-Qawwali (from Pakistan) –, one after another, present their spiritual concerts. The audition (al-sama) of the Sufi Night (the name given to the concert), on the both of the two nights, ended in the small hours. With the recitations and poetic songs of the Murids from Senegal, the Koranic recitations presented in elaborate vocal techniques by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tûni (from Egypt), the zikr circle (repetition of the names of God), led by Mir Fakr al-Din Agha (from Afghanistan) and the joyful and contagious Qawwali songs (from Pakistan), led by Asif Ali Khan, the Sufi rituals rivaled the profane techno “trances” of modern rave culture. In this text – which is fruit of an ethnography of passage – the author makes a comparative reflexion between the “vertiginous trances” produced on the rave dance floors and the esoteric “trances” or “ecstasies” experienced by the participants (“musicians” and “listeners”) of and in the public Sufi concerts or auditions (al-sama).

UK Rave Culture and the Thatcherite Hegemony, 1988–94

During the late Eighties and early Nineties a youth movement swept the United Kingdom, asserting an ethos of communalism, unity and hedonism radically different to the ‘New Right’ paradigm of the times. Whilst postmodernists have rejected the role of subculture in symbolically both mapping and resisting the machinations of the dominant culture, rave culture's ability to alternately contest and mimic Thatcherite ideology suggests that this dismissal may be unmerited. By employing Foucauldian theory regarding ‘heterotopias’ this paper seeks to demonstrate that youth movements and subcultures should remain in consideration as symbolic challenges and explorations of the hegemonic state ideology.

Transformational Festivals

With the growing popularity of psychedelic trance worldwide, as well as a general resurgence of electronic music in the United States, several new forms of music festivals are one the rise in North America- among these are transformational festivals. Transformational festivals in North America are a progeny of psychedelic trance, Burning Man, and full-moon rave culture. Transformational festivals incorporate spiritual practices such as yoga, chanting, meditation and ecstatic dance alongside their primary exhibits of musical and psychedelic entertainment. The festivals advertise a predominating intention of providing attendees with multiple avenues of self-development, therapeutic healing, and spiritual transformation. The purpose of this chapter is to access elements of belonging, identity, religiosity, and elitism among transformational culture and their transformational festival events. This chapter will offer comparison to religious revivals, cults, new religious movements, millenarianism, and cultural revitalization movements.

Analysis of the Process of Recreation of the Self, Explored through the Passage from Whole-Body Eroticism of Disco Music to the de-Eroticization of the Body in Rave Culture

Background: The potential of Disco music in the creation of new social practices and values, associated with its computerization and its evolution into Rave, made Dance music able to generate alternative sense of identity, through the direct experience of the body that it offered. Aim: In this paper authors are going to analyse the way in which self-identity is renegotiated in Dance music context with reference to Disco and Rave music in the period between the beginning of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s, respectively the moments when these new genres developed. Method: Authors will explore the concept of Disco music and its extension into Rave culture, concentrating on the effects that they had on the music scene of the period and the ways in which they challenged the mainstream musical norm of the time. Then, we are also going to approach Dance music policy of freedom that allowed breaking down the traditional rules of sexuality and building an alternative system of social values through which the process of re-creation of the self was enacted. Finally, we will focus on the notion of ‘jouissance’—whose production is the final pursuit of Dance music—also with reference to the importance the use of drugs like ecstasy had on the achievement of this liberating state. Conclusion: This work can track the evolution of the process of renegotiation of the self in the Dance musical scene during the 1970s and 1980s by determining the intersecting factors that contributed to the production of new types of identities.